I'm already getting enquiries about my 2024 dates for the ever popular Living Wild 4 Day Back to Basics Bushcraft Course so here they are!
13th - 17th May 2024
Price per person £535
Judging by my waiting list this course may already be half full so please get in touch quick to guarantee your place.
Right from the off, we’ll be completely focussed on using the bare minimum of equipment to achieve our aim.
All course participants will only carry a stripped down basic kit - just a knife, folding saw, fire steel, cooking pot, a five metre length of paracord, a cloth bag to filter water, a water bottle, a head torch, a drinking cup and a wool blanket. Basic rations will be provided.
Nature will provide everything else we need. Working with the guidance of instructors you will build your shelter from wood and a bed from leaves, learn how to light your fire with sparks and natural tinders and prepare your evening meal (including an introduction to preparing small game) so that by nightfall on day one, you'll have protection, warmth and the chance to refuel before day two.
Over the remaining three days you will learn...
How to feed yourself from the wild - we’ll get out on the land gathering wild foods to supplement our rations. Focus will be on gathering wild foods for sustenance rather than fine dining however, when you're living the good life, flavours are important!
How to process large game in the woods - we’ll skin and butcher a deer, cook some of the resulting meat over the fire and dry smoke the remainder as campfire jerky. You will learn all about the different by products of deer butchery – preserving and processing the hide to make rawhide, plus a discussion on how to use the sinew, tendons and bones to make tools and weapons.
How to make fire by friction - you’ll make your own bow drill set from native woods and create fire from it. Learning to light fire by rubbing sticks together takes the craft of fire lighting back to it's roots, encouraging the practitioner to pay close attention to the tiniest detail in order to achieve success. In doing so, you'll truly understand how fire works and what NEEDS to be done when you really need one.
How to cook over a campfire – you will be involved in preparing and cooking all meals, some made using modern cooking pots and some utilising cooking equipment made from the woods and by carefully controlling the fire itself. You’ll also be shown how to bake bread over a campfire.
Where to find water and make it safe to drink - finding, gathering, processing and sterilizing water is an essential daily task when living and travelling outdoors. We’ll show you how to locate it, harvest it when there’s seemingly none to be found and make it safe to drink both with and without specialist equipment.
How to gather and use bark, roots, plant and animal fibres for making cordage and other camp crafts – cordage, rope, string, bindings are an essential part of life when building a shelter, improvising kit from nature, making improvements to your camp or just working on woodland crafts. Best of all, cordage created from nature goes right back to nature when you leave!
Trap building - harvesting meat from the wild is very much a reality to those who aim to live a truly wild lifestyle. Although we won’t be practicing trapping or hunting during the course, we will explore several methods of obtaining meat from the wild by constructing clever, improvised traps - the little hunters that never sleep!
Camp crafts and improving your situation will be an ever present theme. Whether it’s making improvements to your shelter, plumping up your leaf mattress, carving an adjustable pot hanger for your billy can or just improvising a chair, our goal will be to survive in style!
Your basic kit will reveal some glaring omissions as we progress through the course, allowing you the opportunity to put your crafting skills to good use by creating useful items such as wooden eating spoons.
Your learning during this course will be progressive and organic as we’ll be using the knowledge daily, fully immersed in the experience of living wild. There'll be something for everyone too, whether you're new to survival and bushcraft training or you've been around the block a bit and just want the opportunity to improve your current skill level. The final night out is designed to test your knowledge and acrued skills whatever level you're at!
Friday morning consists of an in-depth debrief over breakfast, the perfect chance for everyone to share their experiences and benefit from others.
This course is survival & bushcraft training 'in the raw' therefore there will be some hard graft involved and the working days will be long.
We certainly won't be going out for morning runs but you will need to have a good level of physical fitness to take part as well as being mentally resilient, prepared to work hard and up for a challenge.
